


all that glitters is actually glitter

by orphan_account



Series: Glitter, but, like, not like Twilight [2]
Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - Journalism, Alternate Universe - Magic, Concussions, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Not Beta Read, Shapeshifting, Sneaking, Temporary Amnesia, creepy children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 19:51:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19069501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “I want to learn magic,” Brian tells Pat for the hundredth time.“You don’t have a wand,” Pat says, mouth full of mushroom pizza. He winces at Brian’s gag and swallows before continuing, motioning around with the uneaten half of his slice. “You can’t cast magic without it.”“Okay.” Brian nods. “Where do I get one?”“You don’t.”





	all that glitters is actually glitter

**Author's Note:**

> wizards 2, eclectic boogaloo, y'all
> 
> like the last one, this is not beta read. or edited. whoops. also maybe pat is a literal cat in this, but, like, what am i gonna do about it? (also idk what this series title is for, ao3 just needed one and it sounded fancy and wizardy)

The first thing Brian wants to learn is how to turn into a cat like Pat. For the cuddle sessions, of course, but also because he really wants to get revenge for months of lying by sleeping on Pat’s face in the middle of the night. Not that he can’t do that now, but he doesn’t want to break his boyfriend’s neck. Just, like, cut off his air supply a little.

 

The thing is, though, Pat put a new lock on the basement, and there’s no key to this one. It’s some weird magic fingerprint-reader thing and it is literally Brian’s worst nightmare. Because, out of all the borderline-criminal skills his years in the field have taught him, lifting prints is definitely the one he is worst at. Not to mention the fact that Pat’s second rule of their new deal is that Brian is not allowed in the basement without “adult supervision”.

 

(“Really?” Brian asked, raising an eyebrow. They were on hour two of trying to negotiate a deal, and they both were either going to kill each other or kiss each other’s faces off, and Brian knew which he’d prefer.

 

“It’s dangerous down there, hon,” Pat sighed, stopping his mildly-deranged pacing just long enough to fix Brian with a wary look. “I’ve got spells down there that could end the world. I’m willing to go down there with you.”

 

“And teach me?”

 

Pat nodded, starting up his pacing again. “Yeah. Eventually. Once I know you won’t try and end the world.”

 

Brian frowned. “Why would I do that?”

 

“Magic’s weird, man. I knew a guy who cast his first spell and immediately tried burning his parents’ house down.”

 

Brian rolled his eyes, picked up a pen off of Pat’s desk and started fidgeting with it. “Whatever. You can trust me, babe.”

 

Pat let out a cute tinkle of a laugh, eyes crinkling up at the corners. God, it was adorable. An easy smile crossed his face, a nice change from the troubled frown that had been on his face since they started this whole discussion.

 

“Can I?” he asked. And Brian just stuck his tongue out at him, and they continued on coming up with rules that both of them knew Brian would never follow and Pat would forget about.)

 

But Brian’s always been an innovator. Once back when he and Laura were working their ways up the ladder of life, they got stuck in a dumpster outside their older brother’s office building. Brian managed to convince a similarly-trapped raccoon to crawl out through a hole in the corner and push the television off the lid. And all Brian had to do in return was buy the little guy a croissant. Another time he needed to break into a dirty politician’s office back in Maryland, and he managed to squeeze himself into a trash can and hide out all day until everyone was gone and he could get a load of the files he needed. So maybe all he has experience with is trash, but there can’t be much of a difference between a trash can and Patrick Gill’s dirty-ass basement.

 

The plan is simple: break back into the bookshop and lift a print off of whatever book Pat’s been pouring himself into. Try that. If that fails, cry and try again after a couple of days.

 

A couple of days and a good cry session later, Brian tries a different approach. Maybe the lock needs Pat’s life force or some dumb shit like that. Wouldn’t be surprising; Pat’s always been into the more gothic parts of life, wouldn’t surprise Brian if the lock needed his blood. And, as luck has it, Pat cuts himself shaving one morning. And, while Brian is incredibly heartbroken by the temporary loss of his boy’s lovely beard, Brian immediately collects the towel out of the hamper and shoves it in his messenger bag while Pat’s magicking up some actually edible bacon (no wonder Pat’s a horrible cook, he used magic to do it all his life until Brian showed up). After breakfast, Pat gives Brian a quick kiss on the cheek before grabbing his keys and rushing off to go buy more newt spleens for a spell he’s been working on, or something like that, anyway. A few minutes later, Brian calls in sick to work, lifts a print off of the tv remote, and takes off for the bookshop.

 

He presses the slightly-wet blood to the tape and lets out a light breath before pressing the tape to the lock with a thumb. There’s a pause and a slight hiss as the lock fucking _disintegrates holy shit_ and the basement door creaks open. A faint green light shines through the crack, and Brian grins brightly and hops to his feet, adjusting his bag and pushing up his glasses. He opens the door further and, after a moment of not-so-quiet awe and wonder, carefully makes his way down the warped wooden stairs and into the basement.

 

The first thing that hits him is the rank smell of decomposing _things_ and the cinnamon-vanilla candle Brian gave Pat for Christmas last year, somehow still burning. The second thing is a bright blue flash of something that zooms out of seemingly nowhere and barrels into Brian’s chest, knocking him back onto the steps. He cracks his head against a step and his glasses are knocked off and through a crack between two steps and all he can see is a dark figure and-

 

-

 

Brian finds out that his maybe-boyfriend-maybe-friend is scared of thunderstorms on their second maybe-date.

 

It goes like this, which is the direct opposite of how Brian had planned it to be:

 

The picnic was not supposed to get rained out. In fact, the usually-reliable weather app on Brian’s phone told him it was supposed to rain on Monday. Not on fucking Saturday. Which led to where he and Pat are now, sitting in a gazebo with three strange, parentless children who keep staring at the two of them with wide, soulless eyes. Maybe Brian’s a bit unnerved. Maybe he keeps shifting closer and closer to Pat, and maybe he grabs Pat’s hand and squeezes it just the right amount.

 

They’re soaking wet, the two of them, Brian’s hair plastered to his head and Pat’s obstinately sticking to the side of his face like a horny octopus. This would be the one day Brian wears white. He catches Pat staring briefly for a moment before he turns his glance back to the sky.

 

“You need a new weather app,” Pat comments, sticking a hand out from under the roof and immediately recoiling. It’s quick, too quick. He might be allergic to water. Or it might be, like, acid rain. Nothing Brian’s gross little reporter brain needs to think about.

 

Brian nods and wipes his hair out of his face, leans back against the railing and shuffles even closer to Pat as the three children tilt their heads at them in unison. Pat puts a hand on his hip and steps just slightly in front of Brian, who immediately feels like he’s going to pass out due to both the creepy children and Pat’s sheer heroism.

 

One of the children takes a step towards them, Pat’s hand goes for something that Brian can’t see from his angle, and, suddenly, there’s a crash of thunder as lightning strikes a tree a few dozen feet away. Pat screams and stumbles back, falling to the ground wide-eyed, and the children are gone within the literal blink of an eye. Maybe they got hit by lightning. That Brian didn’t see and somehow didn’t get struck by.

 

Okay, gross little reporter brain is going to be on this as soon as Pat’s done panicking.

 

Brian crouches on the floor next to him, carefully, slowly. Pat’s immediately pulling him into a tight hug, burying his face in Brian’s extremely-wet-and-see-through shirt, shaking so bad he could be going through a blender. His hands curl into the back of Brian’s shirt, and, wow, his nails are fucking sharp, okay. Going to need to keep that in mind.

 

Brian puts his arms around Pat, rubbing his back awkwardly. He looks around the now-abandoned park, watches as a family the next gazebo over takes off for their minivan in the nearby parking lot.

 

“We should get inside,” Brian gently says. Because he may be in undeniable and undying love with this man after only two maybe-dates and three whole conversations, but he also values his life a bit more than the need to keep holding onto a very wet and very scared man.

 

Pat’s voice is small as he responds. “G-gimme a minute. Please.”

 

Brian nods. His hand brushes against something...hard sticking out of the back of Pat’s belt. He immediately pulls his mind out of the gutter and peeks over Pat’s heaving shoulders to see a gnarled stick poking out of Pat’s jeans, and his mind immediately flicks between the books he’s read and the few episodes of _Merlin_ he watched with Laura and the wand Brian has shoved in the back of his closet that he got from that Harry Potter place down in Florida.

 

He coughs and smiles. “Hey, Pat, you got a stick in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?”

 

Pat sputters and pulls out of the hug, pulls out the stick and-

 

Brian flinches at another rumble of thunder and pulls out of the hug regretfully. He jumps to his feet and reaches a hand down to help Pat up, not quite registering the guilty look on his maybe-hopefully-boyfriend’s face. Pat takes his hand and brushes a light kiss against Brian’s knuckles before pulling himself up, groaning as his old man bones pop. He grabs the picnic basket and smiles a bit at Brian’s incredibly-flustered face, immediately losing that smile and ducking behind Brian as another peal of thunder rolls across the empty park.

 

Brian reaches a hand back to grab his, smiling back at him. “Come on, I have a towel in the car.”

 

Pat’s grip on his hand is almost bone-breaking by the time they reach Brian’s car, and the entire time, Brian feels like they’re being watched.

 

-

 

Brian presses the bag of ice to the side of his head, hissing and recoiling as the sudden _cold fuck cold fuck_ hits him. Pat crosses his arms and leans back next to him, the loveseat vaguely creaking in protest. It can suck it up, wooden bitch chair.

 

“You could’ve knocked,” Pat says, and Brian groans because this is the fifth time in the past ten minutes Pat’s been pulling this _I-told-you-so_ shit.

 

“You shot me,” Brian whines, letting the ‘e’ drag on pathetically. He flops over, dropping his head against Pat’s boney shoulder. Too boney. He needs to eat more, like, beef.

 

“You broke into my basement,” Pat says. Brian just whines again because his head hurts too much to do anything else. Pat sighs and gently kisses Brian’s hand where it sits above his _ow fuck oh fuck_ head. “Just ask next time, okay?”

 

“You need more beef,” Brian says, because that’s all his brain is telling him. Beef, beef, _ow fuck_ , beef.

 

Pat snorts. “You need self-preservation.”

 

“Caution’s for bitches, I’m too cool for that.”

 

“You’re a loser.”

 

Brian weakly bats his eyes up at him. “I’m a loser. Your. Ow.”

 

“You are my ‘ow’, dear,” Pat snarks. Brian pouts, and Pat caves after literal seconds, uncrossing his arms and turning himself and Brian so that Brian’s head is in his lap and Pat’s stomach is what’s keeping the ice stable. Brian lets his arms flop behind his head, absently playing with the cushion’s edge.

 

“I’m making steak for dinner,” Brian announces. He pauses, thinks for a moment, frowns. “Ah, shit, we’re out of cows.”

 

“We are out of cows, you’re right.”

 

“Patrick, can you make me a cow?”

 

Pat shakes his head, and Brian feels the tears from the trip up the stairs and into Pat’s office return with full force.

 

Pat pushes his glasses up into his hairline and covers his eyes with his hand, sighing, “I can’t just _make_ things. They take time, Brian.”

 

“I’m going to be stuck here until the Uber arrives,” Brian reminds him, because fuck if they were going to cough up five thousand for an ambulance.

 

“Five minutes is not long enough to conjure up a wholeass cow, dear.”

 

“What about a halfass cow?”

 

“No, Brian.”

 

Brian sniffs. “I hate you.”

 

“What were you doing down there, anyway?” Pat asks, a tired edge to his voice.

 

Brian is a trained professional. He’s been tortured to give up his trade secrets, he’s been begged by his sister to tell her how the actual fuck he talked to a raccoon, he’s been poked and prodded into giving his methods of magical lock picking two minutes ago by the soft, gentle hands of his soulmate, his one and only, his one true love. God, his head hurts. Chest hurts. Everything hurts.

 

“I thought you were getting newt dicks,” Brian mutters, closing his eyes against the blinding light of the desk lamp on the other side of the room. “Was supposed to be easy.”

 

“You know I’m down there in the morning,” Pat sighs.

 

“Newt dicks, Pat, I know what takes priority. I saw it in a movie once.”

 

“I...okay, Brian, this isn’t a movie. You're not the hero who learns magic from an old crotchety wizard. This is real life, and, in real life, newts are only exchanged for spellbooks.”

 

“But you are an old crotchety wizard.”

 

Pat huffs, and his phone dings.

 

“Uber’s here,” he says, and Brian’s too busy imagining Pat with a full Gandalf beard to register being picked up bridal-style and carried away.

 

-

 

One week after they start officially dating (two weeks after the failed picnic and one week after Brian realized that he’s missing about five minutes of that outing altogether, not at all remembering how they even ended up on the floor hugging), Pat falls asleep with his head on Brian’s lap at two in the afternoon, and it’s maybe the most adorable thing Brian’s seen in his entire life. Because Pat curls up on his side and into as much of a ball as one can on a near-broken loveseat in the back office of a dusty old bookshop and buries his face into Brian’s stomach, wrapping the arm he’s laying on around Brian’s middle and letting the other one flop off the edge of the loveseat. And it only took a moment, too, just long enough for them to have decided that, yeah, the shop’s going to be closed for the rest of the afternoon and long enough for Brian to have started running his fingers through Pat’s hair, secretly freaking out the whole time because _holy shit Pat’s hair is softer than he thought oh shit_.

 

Brian spends a long moment just watching Pat sleep before smiling and going back to combing through his hair. Pat hums in his sleep and twitches, somehow pressing himself even closer to Brian, and Brian is immediately convinced that this is how he wants to spend the rest of his life: cuddling with the man he’s in love with and avoiding his job.

 

He lets his head tip back against the uncomfortable wooden backing of the loveseat, staring up at the stained ceiling. Purple stains, some neon yellow. Black, a weird blue that Brian’s never seen before in his entire life except for a dream when he was a kid where he got to go to Hogwarts and his pet owl was a bright not-quite-but-almost-turquoise. The owl’s name was Charlie, and Wizard Brian loved him with all his heart. That was really what got him into his research into the fantastical, his need to wake up and have Charlie the Blue Owl be real and be his friend because maybe weird nerd kids didn’t have many friends except for the ones in their dreams.

 

Brian’s eyes drift shut, and he lets them. He isn’t going back to work this afternoon. He isn’t going to make Pat move just so he can get up and not nap with the current love of his life. And, yeah, his back is going to scream at him for the next day or two after this, but it’s worth it just to feel Pat’s warmth against his too-cold body.

 

-

 

“I want to learn magic,” Brian tells Pat for the hundredth time.

 

“You don’t have a wand,” Pat says, mouth full of mushroom pizza. He winces at Brian’s gag and swallows before continuing, motioning around with the uneaten half of his slice. “You can’t cast magic without it.”

 

“Okay.” Brian nods. “Where do I get one?”

 

“You don’t,” Pat explains, taking another quick bite and following it up with his beer. “You, shit, sorry- You don’t get one. You make it. Like mine was made out of a stick I found in my backyard. My sister’s is made out of a bunch of Legos.”

 

Brian’s heart sinks, and he nods again and picks a couple of mushrooms off the pizza, smirking as Pat swats his hand away.

 

Pat sighs and puts his slice down, pulls his wand out of his back pocket and puts it on the table between them.

 

“See,” he says. “this thing was made out of years of trying and failing with random shit I found around the house. It needs to be special, I think. Least that’s what my dad told me.”

 

Brian picks up the wand, shivering at the sudden spark of energy it sends through his fingertips. He rolls it around in his fingertips. He has to wonder if its weird purplish-red color is magic or whether the trees in Maine could really be this color. There are still a few knots in it, a tiny branch or two sticking out of the sides, all rubbed smooth from years of use.

 

“Do you think I can make one?” he quietly asks, glancing up at Pat over the rims of his new glasses (the old ones are still under the basement stairs, probably never to be seen again).

 

Pat hesitates before answering, voice slow and methodical. “Maybe? I don’t know. I was, uh, eleven? I think? My sister was eight, and both of us were taught our entire lives. And you, sorry, you weren’t.”

 

“You said I have magical potential,” Brian says, more to himself. He can almost see his reflection in the wand’s handle, it’s so smooth. “So I can do it. Eventually.”

 

Pat nods and holds out a hand for his wand, and Brian reluctantly gives it back, immediately missing its warmth.

 

“Eventually,” Pat agrees. He flashes a brief smile as he pockets his wand again. “On the bright side, for now, I can just, like, show you what magic can do. In private. Because the wizard cops will-”

 

“Kneestrike my vital organs and send me to Finland,” Brian finishes. He snags a few more mushrooms off the pizza before Pat catches him with another hand smack and a playful hiss. Maybe not playfully. It’s still super weird to hear a very feline noise out of a very human mouth. Brian hopes to be able to do it, too, someday. Once he has a wand, and once he gets ahold of whatever spell he’s going to need.

 

-

 

Laura takes up knitting for all of two weeks before giving it up because someone keeps stealing her yarn, and it isn’t Jonah, and she knows that Brian wouldn’t touch her craft shit with a ten-foot pole out of fear for his life. They eventually decide that Zuko ate it all, and Laura moves onto something slightly more productive in the form of pancake art.

 

A couple of days after Pat’s first dinner over at Brian’s, Brian’s helping clean out the front desk at the shop, and, right in the top right drawer, is a tight ball of multi-colored yarn.

 

He pulls it out and gives it a light squeeze. “Hey, Pat, this yours?”

 

Pat glances up from where he’s emptying out the bottom left drawer and immediately focuses in on the ball.

 

“Uh,” he says, blinking and looking away seemingly-reluctantly. “yeah. Stress ball.”

 

“Huh,” Brian says, giving the ball another squeeze. “It’s cute. Where’d you get it?”

 

“Hobby Lobby.”

 

Brian lightly laughs and puts the ball on top of the desk, moving onto the next pile of strangely-colored rubber bands (these ones are all the same hot pink as Brian’s fingernails). “You, Pat Gill, went to a Hobby Lobby without me? I’m astonished.”

 

Pat’s ears color, and he reaches up and grabs the yarn ball without looking, rolling it around in a circle in his palm. His other hand continues working.

 

“I, uh, shut up,” he stammers.

 

Brian rolls his eyes and gives the top of Pat’s head a kiss before going back to sorting the rubber bands. On the way, Pat tilts his head back and catches Brian’s mouth in a kiss. Brian forgets about his task immediately, dropping down onto the floor and pulling Pat closer.

 

The yarn ball falls out of Pat’s hand and onto the floor as he turns and places his hands on Brian’s cheeks, and it rolls away and out of sight and out of mind.

 

-

 

Brian is half-asleep on the couch after a long day of moving his things into Pat’s - _their_ \- apartment when a sudden weight hops up onto his chest, spinning in a small circle before settling down and purring. Brian instinctively begins petting Zuko’s back, slowly drifting off, when he hears Zuko meow from across the apartment.

 

He cracks an eye open and softly smiles, vaguely recognizing the cat from the bookshop curled up on top of him.

 

“You’re heavy,” he comments, smiling wider as Pat gives him a stink eye and briefly stops purring. Pat nudges Brian’s hand to keep petting, and Brian, of course, obliges. Pat’s eyes close and his purrs slowly fade into soft, short breaths, and Brian soon follows, still with a hand on his wizard boyfriend’s furry back.

 

-

 

Three weeks after Brian moves in with Pat and two weeks after beginning his search for his wand, he and Pat sit in the basement, Pat quietly transcribing spells into a blank notebook and Brian playing through _Celeste_ again. The cinnamon candle’s burned out by now, and Brian thinks that the next one is going to be pine. God knows this mess of a room needs some festive cheer beyond a dead wreath hanging on the back of the door.

 

The basement’s shitty little couch has a billion springs poking out of it and a weird fuzzy stain on a cushion that Brian’s avoiding as best he can, curled up on a single cushion and desperately hoping he doesn’t touch whatever the hell that stain is. For all he knows, it could, like, turn him into a frog. Or just kill him.

 

It’s almost silent, the only noises being the quiet music of Brian’s Switch and the blizzard raging outside. And the random crackling noises coming from the furnace, which Pat assured him he should not be worried about at all because it’s magic and apparently magical furnaces are unsafe pieces of shit. But Pat can take care of it. Maybe. Hopefully. Because Brian’s been planning of dying of old age for the past couple years and he really doesn’t want to die in Pat Gill’s shitty basement.

 

Brian clears the hotel segment and pauses the game in the menu, putting his Switch in his lap and stretching his arms above his head with a groan. Pat glances up from his work, eyes lingering on the sliver of skin showing as Brian’s shirt rides up.

 

Brian winks, and Pat cheekily grins and goes back to his notebook.

 

Technically, Brian should be investigating a group of kids said to be frequenting Central Park. But it’s also snowing out, and he’s busy investigating something else. Someone else, still, even after unraveling the whole thing. Because, in the low light, Pat’s eyes are glowing a faint blue, casting a rippling light across the pages of his book. Because the furnace on the other side of the room lets out a high-pitched scream once an hour until Pat gets up and kicks it a few times. Because the stain on the couch seems to have grown eyes and is now staring at Brian hungrily.

 

“Uh, Pat?” Brian asks, voice cracking. Pat grunts, and Brian grabs his Switch and hops off the couch, staring down at the stain warily. “Your couch is staring at me.”

 

“It does that,” Pat absently responds. He dips his quill into its little pot of ink and glances up at Brian, quickly smiling. “It’s fine.”

 

“I’m, uh, I’m just gonna sit over here,” Brian says, crossing the room and sliding into the seat opposite Pat at the table.

 

Pat pulls some of his books closer, making room, and he goes back to work. Brian’s about to get back to his game when a book on the floor catches his attention. He puts the Switch down on the table and picks the book up, turning it over in his hands.

 

The book is a dark plum color, its pages creamy white and seemingly unmarred. On the cover in gold calligraphy in Pat’s beautifully-terrible handwriting is _Celeste_.

 

Brian smiles and cracks open the book, smiling wider at the small _“For Brian”_ scrawled on the front page in bright blue ink. He flips through it and quickly puts the book back down before Pat can see, because there’s almost nothing else in it except for a couple of pages on birds and foxes and other whimsical forest creatures (Brian finds himself lingering on the fox page, something in the back of his mind telling him that this is important). And he picks his game back up and gets back to it, content listening to Pat quietly humming along to the soundtrack.

 

-

 

A week after their first kiss, Brian still feels himself walking on air. He can still feel Pat’s scruff against his face, the soft brush of his hair against Brian’s cheeks. And it was beautiful, and it was heavenly, and all Brian wants is to feel Patrick Gill’s lips against his again. And maybe to find Hogwarts, but kissing Pat takes precedence.

 

They go out for Indian and take it back to Pat’s place, crashing on the couch and turning on some trash anime Pat’s apparently been meaning to check out. Something about dragons and playing cards and, for some fucking reason, James Bond. Brian tunes out halfway through the first episode, content eating his samosa and only occasionally stealing a kiss. Because he can, and also because Pat’ll steal his food if he isn’t distracted.

 

At some point after the food’s gone and the anime’s gone from a high school drama to a volleyball-focused anime with an emphasis on guns (the balls have guns in them, somehow, and missing a hit leads to a member of your team getting their brains blown out to a supposedly-emotional Japanese cover of “Skyfall”), Brian and Pat have tangled themselves together, Brian lying on top of Pat’s chest with his ear to his heart, one leg hanging off the couch and the other tucked underneath one of Pat’s, one hand holding Pat’s hand off the edge of the couch and the other tucked into the small slot between them and the back of the couch, Pat watching the shitshow on screen with his arm slung across Brian’s back, squeezing gently every time someone dies onscreen. Which is surprisingly often; Brian doesn’t think volleyball teams are supposed to be one superspy versus fifty anime-haired men in sparkly Elvis-style jumpsuits, but what does he know?

 

Brian’s eyes slip shut as the end credits roll, and he feels someone very handsome sigh, Brian almost feeling the incredibly-attractive smile in his bones.

 

Pat sits the two of them up, ignoring Brian’s whines of protest. Brian flops back over and rests his head in Pat’s lap, gazing up at him through half-lidded eyes that he really hopes gets the _can I please sleep here_ across.

 

“You’re impossible,” Pat says, smiling softly. He pulls Brian’s glasses off and places them on the coffee table, then uses that same hand to brush Brian’s hair out of his face. “What am I going to do with you?”

 

“Kiss me?” Brian suggests. He wiggles his eyebrows and smiles as Pat barks out a laugh.

 

“Besides that.”

 

Brian pretends to think. “Hmm. What if you punish me?” Pat coughs, ducking his head away as his entire face turns the color of a cranberry. Brian frowns and lets out a huff. “Not like that, _Patrick_ , get your mind out of the gutter!”

 

Pat jerks his head in a nod. “Yessir.”

 

And, _boy_ , that sends something up Brian’s spine. A surprise tool that can help him later. Soon, but later.

 

Brian raises a hand to cup Pat’s cheek, angling his head back towards him. He grins as Pat leans his entire self into the touch, closing his eyes and humming. No, wait, not humming. What the-

 

“Pat?” Brian asks, sitting up and pulling his hand away. The...whatever noise Pat was making stops as suddenly as it started, and Pat stiffens. “You good?”

 

Pat coughs into his hand and nods. “Yeah.” Coughs, this one definitely sounding fake. “Uh, asthma acting up again. I’m fine.”

 

Brian raises an eyebrow he knows Pat can’t see, his smile fading completely. Gross little reporter brain reports for duty.

 

“You aren’t going to get your inhaler?”

 

“It’s getting refilled.”

 

“Ah.” Brian says, leaning back into the couch. “Weird how that asthma gets, huh? My, uh, Jonah has it. Always acts up when he eats too much spicy food.”

 

“Yeah,” Pat lies. “Me too. I’m fine. Actually, could you hand me my water bottle?”

 

Brian slowly nods and reaches for Pat’s water off the coffee table. As he turns to hand it over, he’s met with a bright blue flash of light, and-

 

Brian lifts his head from Pat’s shoulder and kisses him, melting into it as Pat cups the back of his head and pulls him closer.

 

It’s almost midnight, he really should be getting home, but he doesn’t think he’d be able to leave this spot even if he tried.

 

-

 

Brian is at work when it happens, because of course it would be in public.

 

It’s been five months since beginning this quest, five long, _long_ months of watching Pat do cool shit and Brian sitting on the sideline with a bowl of popcorn. And, yeah, he still adores watching Pat work. Or watching Pat do literally anything, magic or no magic. But ever since around March, something’s been sitting in Brian’s chest. Something that seems to be trying to burn him from the inside out. Pat said it’s either heartburn or cancer, the bastard. Laura said it’s probably a ghost. Brian said it’s a mixture of the two and has been keeping a sliver of birch bark in his wallet right next to his insurance card just to be safe. And now it’s May and nothing is getting any easier, the pain being especially bad when he’s at work for some ungodly reason.

 

It’s the middle of yet another interview with a homeless guy (because _apparently_ the only people seeing strange shadowy children are creepy homeless people with too-little teeth and too many stories about being eaten alive by killer squirrels), Clayton taking notes and Brian recording, when there’s a sudden spark from the equipment and it, for lack of a better term, blows to smithereens. The homeless guy screams and stumbles away and back into his tent, and Clayton mutters a quiet curse and starts fanning the smoke away. Brian frowns and moves to unplug the mic, but, the minute he touches the cord, a bright green _thing_ leaps out from the body, travels up his arm and into his head, and he suddenly finds himself looking at himself.

 

“Hey,” says the other Brian, smiling and shoving his hands into his pockets, leaning back against the picnic table.

 

“Aaah,” Brian says, looking from the other him and down to his hands, and then back up at it. “What the fuck?”

 

This other him...isn’t him. Can’t be. The smile’s a bit too wide, and Brian thinks he can make out a fang or twenty sitting neatly in his mouth. His eyes are focused on a point over Brian’s left shoulder. He still has the second watch on his wrist, though the face facing Brian seems to be running backward. Not to mention it’s another Brian, which he is pretty sure is impossible in several ways.

 

The world around them is slow, and Brian can’t find it within himself to care considering the man standing in front of him. A squirrel running its way up a nearby tree is almost running in place, a falling leaf is still in the air, the smoke rising from the mess of equipment is a stationary grey cloud. Clayton is tumbling backward off the bench as the speed of molasses.

 

“How you doing? You comfortable?”

 

“Am I dead?” Brian asks. He sits back down on the bench and pokes Clayton’s arm; it’s still warm and just a bit squishier than it really should be, and Brian really doesn’t know what that means. “God, Pat’s going to kill me.”

 

“Depends,” the other him shrugs. “you could die. Though we all die eventually.”

 

“What the fuck?”

 

“You asked.”

 

Brian slowly blinks. “What are you?”

 

“I’m you.”

 

“But creepy me, right?”

 

“Aren’t we all just creepy versions of ourselves?”

 

“Jesus,” Brian breathes, running a hand through his hair. It glows a bright green and goes right through, going through the rest of his body and landing on the bench with a thud. Brian, appropriately, he thinks, screams and stands up in a flurry of limbs. “What the fuck!?”

 

“We’re Brian, correct?” the other him asks, tilting his head. “Gilbert?”

 

“I don’t know what you are,” Brian wheezes, pressing a hand to his own chest, thanking God as it stays put and doesn’t sink through. “Please leave me alone. I have, uh, work.”

 

The other him titters and takes his spot on the bench, picking up the ruined microphone. It glimmers that bright green and detaches itself from its cord with a hiss. The other Brian twirls it in his fingers and holds it up to the sun for inspection. Clayton, next to him, starts to shield his face.

 

“He could’ve told us more, you know,” the other him comments. He spins the mic a bit, smile not fading.

 

“Who?” Brian asks.

 

“Patrick. You know, I bet he didn’t think you could do it. Get a wand, I mean. He’s never really been in favor of you dealing in this business, has he?”

 

Brian blinks. “What?”

 

“I mean, how many times has he erased your memories of this stuff?” the other Brian continues.

 

“None,” Brian automatically answers, the response sitting strangely in his gut. He shakes his head. “He wouldn’t.”

 

The other Brian tilts his head and laughs. “Oh, yeah? Try this on for size, kid.”

 

He points the microphone at Brian like he’s conducting an interview, mutters something under his breath, and then Brian _remembers_ , something in the back of his mind unlocking itself and entire minutes of his life spilling out.

 

“Oh my God,” he whispers, finding himself smiling. “He purrs. That’s fucking adorable.”

 

The other him blinks a few times and pulls the mic back, shakes it a few times and bangs it against his hand, flinching as a spark of green pops out of the head.

 

“What?” he asks, looking up at Brian and frowning for the first time, his brow furrowing. “No, not adorable. He- Brian, he magicked you. Without your permission.”

 

Brian shrugs. “He probably had a good reason. Like, what’s that one thing he never shuts up about?”

 

“You not knowing magic and how you shouldn’t know that he’s a wizard?”

 

Brian shakes his head, snaps. “Rule one! He could’ve gone to wizard jail.”

 

“Wizard jail isn’t real.”

 

“How do you know?” Brian asks. “You’re me, right? I’m pretty sure wizard jail’s in Utah.”

 

“Area 51, probably.”

 

“Yeah!” Brian grins. “Nevada, but good idea! Put that on the list, me.”

 

“You might’ve known the real location by now if he had told you he’s a wizard from the beginning,” the other him says, smile curling back up. A forked tongue sneaks its way through a gap in his teeth, and Brian’s breath catches for a moment.

 

“Yeah,” Brian says, voice shaking slightly. He takes a step backward, making sure to avoid stepping on Clayton’s hand as it slowly approaches the grass. “But where’s the fun in that?”

 

“Fun?” the other Brian laughs, shaking his head. “Don’t act like you’re having fun, kid, I’m you. I go to your therapist with you. Besides, imagine the ‘fun’ you could be having by now if he had just taught you from the beginning.”

 

The microphone is pointed at him again, and Brian has a flash of something, of him and Pat in the basement working together, Pat asking something of him and Brian pulling something thin and black out of his back pocket and flicking it at a stack of books in the corner, a plum-colored book floating towards the two of them. And, as soon as it’s there, it’s gone. And Brian’s on his knees, the other him standing a few feet away, twirling the microphone like it’s a baton.

 

“You can’t do magic without a wand,” Brian says, remembering Pat’s words, the sullen look on his face. Almost grieving. Upset.

 

“Bullshit. Remember that raccoon?”

 

“Oh,” Brian quietly says. Because he only vaguely remembers that entire experience, the actual “conversation” with the raccoon being clouded by something Brian only remembers as exhaustion.

 

“Yeah. And that’s something Patrick can’t do. That’s top-level shit, my dude. Imagine how good you’d be if he let you harness that power earlier.”

 

“He’s an idiot,” Brian says, and he feels the bite rather more than he intends it. He shakes his head, standing up shakily and dusting his jeans off. He looks at the other him, who’s grinning widely. “He’s an idiot, and I’m the one who never told him about the raccoon. He fucking thinks that bees are the same as wasps, dude, he’s a dumbass.”

 

The other him’s smile flickers. “Yeah. And you’d have him control you and your magic? Your potential?”

 

“He doesn’t control shit.” Brian smiles. “You’ve seen him in bed.”

 

The other him’s cheeks turn a gaudy shade of green. “That’s...no. That’s not important.”

 

“Then what is? You? Because you’re me, and I have no say in anything in the world. Like you said, we’re just meaningless worms in the eyes of God.”

 

“I never said that.”

 

Brian shrugs. “You insinuated it. Read between the lines, dude.”

 

The other him’s grip on the microphone tightens. “Listen to me, kid, this is one of the most important things that will ever happen to you. You ignore what I’m telling you, and you’ll die as meaningless as you are now.”

 

Brian looks down at Clayton as he starts to hit the ground. “I think I’m fine with that. Laura’d kill me if I became more powerful than her.”

 

“You are more powerful than her.”

 

Brian snorts, shakes his head. “You know her. I’m but an ant to her magnifying glass.”

 

“Yes, but what if-”

 

“You know,” Brian says, looking up at the other him and frowning. “you’re an asshole. What are you even doing here?”

 

The other him hisses, his eyes flashing into something vaguely reptilian. “I’m _trying_ to help you. Help _us_.”

 

“Maybe I don’t need help. Not from you, anyway. Pat’s been getting a book together for me. I can work with that.”

 

“Can you, though? What was in there, just a couple of pages full of shitty drawings of forest animals?”

 

Brian pauses, swallows something rising in his throat. “Well…”

 

“And!” the other him interjects, raising a finger, eyes wide with what might pass for sympathy on anyone’s face other than Brian’s. “Even if he was protecting you from the wizard cops, why did he continue to use magic around you? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just, you know, not risk the possibility of you finding out?”

 

The head of the microphone sparks, and the other Brian smirks and taps it against his hip. Brian sinks back down onto the grass, cross-legged, and puts his chin in his hand. Their second fucking date, really, Pat? It was just a stick. He could’ve explained the stick. Because it was a stick back then, nothing even remotely signifying magic.

 

“The kids were there,” he softly says. “I could’ve had this story done by now.”

 

“Yeah, right?” the other him agrees, sitting down next to him. “What an asshole.”

 

“He’s such a bastard.”

 

The other him nods, nudges Brian’s arm with his elbow. Brian glances over at him, barely even blinking as the other him’s eyes shift a sickly yellow color.

 

“You know what this is?” he asks, holding up the microphone. “This is your future. Imagine what we could do to him with this.”

 

Something settles in the pit of Brian’s stomach, and he shakes his head, scoots away a few inches. “Nothing. I could do nothing to him. Because I _love him_ , man, how could I even think about hurting him.”

 

“He clearly doesn’t love you as much as you love him.”

 

“Excuse me!?” Brian incredulously asks, laughing. He hops back to his feet, definitely noting the other him’s sudden shift in expression. “You’re me, right? You’ve seen him. He’s literally the most adoring, sweet, caring, loving-”

 

“He shot you!”

 

“I stole his blood and broke into his fucking basemen-”

 

“Because he wouldn’t let-”

 

“Because it’s fucking dangerous down there!” Brian exclaims. He gasps as a sudden _something_ leaps from the microphone’s head and towards his chest, just barely sidestepping it. Where the magic lands in the grass burns a dark brown and sizzles. He looks at the other him. “You’re evil!”

 

“You’re just now figuring that out? Jesus Christ, you’re dim.”

 

The other him stands, rolling his eyes, and Brian takes a few stumbling steps away. But the other him follows, walking right through Clayton’s body like he’s a ghost. The squirrel on the tree has almost made it to its home, the smoke begins to clear, and Brian feels a sudden pain in his temple as the other him levels the _wand_ at him. He stops and cries out, instinctively putting a hand to it and squeezing his eyes shut.

 

“I tried the easy way,” the other him says. Brian doubles over, coughing, forcing his eyes back open. “You know, every new magician goes through this. Patrick almost gave in, almost killed his parents, and he was ten. You’d think that you, a grown man, would be better at this.”

 

“I- oh, _fuck_ , I didn’t know this shit existed until Christmas, dude! What the hell made you think that?”

 

“I don’t know, the fact that you’re trained in picking out the lies from the truths?”

 

“I also lied for a living before this gig.”

 

The other him comes to a stop before him, smiling crookedly. He takes Brian’s chin between his thumb and his fingers and tilts it up towards him, the other hand pressing the head of the microphone against Brian’s stomach. Brian grips the body of the mic with both hands, gritting his teeth.

 

“No hard feelings, me,” the other Brian says. The microphone heats up.

 

“Yeah,” Brian grits, smiling just as crookedly up at his doppelganger. “No hard feelings.”

 

And then he yanks the wand away and stumbles away, falling onto his back and scrambling to point it at the other him. And the other him doesn’t have time to duck as a bolt of emerald-green energy hits him square in the forehead.

 

Brian blinks and suddenly a fuzzy Clayton shape is by his side, shaking his arm. The squirrel chitters up in the tree, and the homeless guy asks if Brian’s dead. It takes a brief moment of groaning and trying to sit up to realize that Brian’s flopped over the bench, his legs still underneath the table and the rest of his body hanging over the side, the top of his head brushing against the grass.

 

His head is throbbing right where he was shot earlier and the hand still holding the microphone is slightly charred. He blinks a couple times, realizes his glasses are gone, and mumbles a request for them.

 

“Brian?” Clayton asks, slowly. Thank God, because Brian’s a bit too busy focusing on trying to figure out what the actual fuck just happened to even think about listening to anything faster than a snail.

 

“Fuck,” is all Brian can manage. “Whuhappa?”

 

The homeless guy makes a disappointed noise and Clayton lets out a relieved sigh, going off into a too-fast tangent about maybe ambulances and maybe ants, Brian can’t tell.

 

“No,” he breathes, trying to sit himself up. Clayton thankfully just pulls him out and lays him down in the grass. “No ambulance. I’m...I’m fine. Glasses?”

 

“Blew up,” Clayton responds. “Yes ambulance, you just...what the fuck were you thinking?”

 

“Dunno,” Brian grunts. He holds the wand, _his_ wand, in front of his face and blinks at it, smiles. “Cool, though, huh?”

 

“No, not cool.”

 

“Super cool.”

 

“Brian, I swear to God-”

 

“God has no say over what I do,” Brian announces. He feels something on the tip of his tongue and lightly smiles. He points the wand at Clayton like he’s about to give an interview and, before Clayton can say anything, says something he doesn’t really understand but that he barely gets the gist of after having it turned on him once or twice. “ _Dìochùimhnich_.”

 

_“Forget.”_

 

Clayton falls to his side in the grass, staring off into nothing. The homeless guy screams just a bit and takes off across the green, and Brian should probably follow him. But, like, fuck that. He’s tired.

 

Instead, he fishes out his phone from his back pocket and blearily brings up Pat’s number. It, of course, goes to voicemail because Pat never fucking answers his phone. As soon as it’s done and the tone goes off, Brian lets out a breath.

 

“Hey, babe!” he cheerfully says, breaking off into a slight cough. He pushes himself into a sitting position and stares down at the wand sitting neatly in his other hand. “You wouldn’t believe what happened...”

 

And maybe he goes on a bit longer than the message will allow, but whatever. The ache in his chest is finally gone, he’s got magic, and he’s really, _really_ tired.

 

-

 

The second thing Brian does with his wand is turn his boyfriend’s wand invisible, and that really says a lot about what he’s planning to do with his magic.

**Author's Note:**

> take a break, man. a you day. drink some tea, watch the good place, monitor your worms and make sure they aren't planning another violent revolution.


End file.
